Melanie McFarland has her finger on the pulse of the television remote. The networks, the premium channels, the great shows you love and the asinine shows the rest of America watches … she knows what's on. If you have a question, e-mail her at tvgal@seattlepi.com.

“Heroes” updates, from the set and the ‘Net.

When said jaunt involves a set visit, even better. When the set in question is “Heroes”? Forget about it. Hello, geek heaven.

The best part about the “Heroes” set visit happens to be difficult to recreate in print. I learned a couple of things about the Hollywood magic that goes into making the show. For example, some of the more complicated visual feats, like watching Crispy Claire heal in front of us after withstanding nuclear heat in the “Company Man” episode, take weeks of research and development to get it just right. But once shooting starts, the visual effects team has to turn it around a matter of days.

See? You had to be there.

But I did get a little scoop. Press Tour has me on the run today, so I’ll save most of the fun stuff, including interviews I scored, for later. Meanwhile, here are a few casting details and other interesting morsels picked up during the set visit, as well as a tour of previous announcements.

Season two premieres at 9 p.m. September 24, which is when we’ll restart our “Heroes” recaps and discussions — the best part about doing this blog.

— Here’s a interesting piece of trivia: The DVD set of season one will be released on Aug. 28, which happens to be the same day that a total lunar eclipse will be visible across the Americas. Is that a coincidence? Someone at NBC is checking around to find out…

— George Takei also is on board for season two. Though he is not a cast regular, Hiro’s father Kaito Nakamura will figure prominently in Volume 2’s overarching theme, “Generations.” Series creator and showrunner Tim Kring explained that the upcoming season explores the sins of the parents being visited on their children, and will reveal deeper mythologies about previous generations of superbeings, and what effect their actions in years past are having on the current crop.

— Where season one’s adventures bounced around the country (via green screen magic) as well as India and Tokyo, season two will bounce to other locations around the globe including Haiti, Central America, Japan, The Ukraine, Egypt, Mexico and Ireland.

–“Heroes” will run through April 2008. Then “Heroes: Origins,” the previously announced anthology series, will pick up from there and run through May.

–James Kyson Lee (aka Ando) recently spent time in Mexico City for the hardest job in show business: He was a judge for the Miss Universe Pageant. Ando fans also may take small comfort in knowing that he was bumped up from guest star to series regular for season two.

— Various sources already have reported a number of cast additions for season two, including Dianna Agron, Dominic Keating, Nick D’Agosto, Shalim Ortiz, Barry Shabaka Henley, Holt McCallany, Japanese pop star Eriko Tamura and the announcement that has fans in a tizzy, David Anders, who played Sark on “Alias.”

Though Kring did not go into additional detail yesterday, Anders reportedly will play Kensei, Hiro’s idol…who is 1,000 years old and also has been referred to as Kane. We suspect that while Hiro is stuck in feudal Japan, he is going to find out that Kensei isn’t the noble legend Hiro has been led to believe he is for all these years. (The previously announced casting of Lyndsy Fonseca has been cancelled; she took a recurring role on the new season of “Desperate Housewives.”)

— Kring also addressed a subplot Season One touched upon in the “Five Years Gone,” episode, in which the passing mention of the Linderman Act (which sounded like a particularly draconian Mutant Registration Act) hinted at possible efforts to turn normal humans against the superpowered. Kring said he intended to save the story of that conflict for farther down the road.

As for who will be hunting Heroes in season two, “It’s not the government,” Kring said. (Hint: Remember what Molly the People Finder said in the finale about the existence of a big bad more frightening than Sylar. Think of the damage a superbeing who has survived for 1,000 years can do.)

— Though Anders was not present, new cast member Dania Ramirez (recognizable from “The Sopranos”) showed up. She revealed that her character, Maya, is a fugitive on run with her twin brother. Although Ramirez would not reveal the nature of Maya’s superpower, her story concerns a dangerous quest to leave Dominican Republic and cross over to the U.S. – bringing a hot button issue, immigration, into the tale. Maya and her brother also will speak Spanish.

— We all took note of the fact that three of the “Heroes” whose lives supposedly hung in the balance by the finale’s end — Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli), Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli) and Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman)- – were present and playing tour guide as groups walked through the set. I think most fans knew Peter and Nathan would make it, so Pasdar and Ventimiglia’s presence was no big whoop. The sight of Grunberg, however, was a pleasant surprise.

While the actor tried to disabuse us of the assumption that his attendance meant Parkman survived being shot in the gut, we didn’t just fall off a turnip truck in Odessa, TX. you know. (Also, he still doesn’t know what yanked him out of the cockpit in the “Lost” pilot.)

— We also could not help noticing the absence of Leonard Roberts, Niki/Jessica Sanders’s man D.L., previously seen bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in the torso. When a reporter brought that up during a panel, Kring warned us that we should not assume his absence means anything. So I suppose one should not read anything into the fact that the synopsis in the press release sent home with us doesn’t include a mention of him either? Hmm….

— Of course, the biggest news around the set was E!’s Monday afternoon revelation that Zachary “Sylar” Quinto would put his psycho killer vibe in a drawer for a spell, and pull out a pair of pointy ears. According to E!, Quinto’s been tapped to play Spock in J.J. Abrams upcoming “Star Trek” film. Neither Quinto nor Kring would confirm that to anyone on the set, but here are a few things to consider.

a) Comic-Con, the molten core of Planet Nerd, is right around the corner.

b) J.J. Abrams is scheduled to appear as part of a big fat Paramount Pictures/ DreamWorks/ NickMovies panel. One of the reasons the panel was formed is to whip fans into a tizzy over “Star Trek XI.”

Kring’s warnings about assumptions be damned – expect “Trek” casting announcements within the next few days at the Con, with Quinto’s official inclusion topping that list.

More details to come, and I hope you’re as excited about the second season as I am.